


i know a part of her lives on

by Alice_not_in_Wonderland



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, May Parker Needs a Hug, May deserves more love, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Torture, Waterboarding, Whump, based on and you'll blow us all away, but not really, cause she's a ghost, i didn't think this through enough, i dont know what im doing, losingmymindtonight, they're an amazing author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 10:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15313377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_not_in_Wonderland/pseuds/Alice_not_in_Wonderland
Summary: May is dead.It had been a car crash, they said. It was in the evening, dark enough so that a speeding driver didn't see hers as it drove across the intersection, and she was gone only hours after arriving at the hospital with her nephew at her side. She's gone.But somehow, impossibly, she wakes up to a new world, with her grieving teenager trying to navigate his life and Tony Stark is...a dad?To be fair, it's not the weirdest thing that's happened to her.NOTE: Based on losingmymindtonight's amazing work And You'll Blow Us All Away.  I can honestly say that it's my favorite Irondad, if not my favorite fanfiction ever, out there, and Kat is the sweetest person you'll ever meet. Please give it a read! (It's so much better than this hot mess at least!)





	i know a part of her lives on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [losingmymindtonight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/losingmymindtonight/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And You'll Blow Us All Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753611) by [losingmymindtonight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/losingmymindtonight/pseuds/losingmymindtonight). 



> This first chapter? Is a test run (I think?) 
> 
> I have a bunch of ideas but I wanna try this out first before I get into all of them. Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment! I love reviews on any of my works, even if I don't update them enough. (or ever)
> 
> (I decided to take a page out of Kat's book, so the title is taken from Dear Theodosia Reprise)
> 
> WARNINGS: car crash? nightmares and panic attacks later on, grief, explicit language
> 
> DISCLAIMER: the plot, and a lot of the dialogue are taken from And You'll Blow Us All Away! This whole concept is just May as a ghost observer to what's going on in that amazing fic, really, because I'm not creative
> 
> DOUBLE DISCLAIMER: characters belong to marvel cause im still broke and disney is a vortex of money and franchises

 

May wakes up suddenly.

 

It takes her a moment to really become aware of her surroundings - her head's fuzzy, like a headache but without the pain. When she shakes it a bit, her hair slaps back against her face but doesn't make a sound, which probably should've concerned her, but she was so out of it that the thought didn't really register. She's not in any pain _(and why should she be, why had she noticed this)_ but everything still feels a bit off.

 

The first thing that she notices is Peter. _(He is always first, her priority since he arrived with red eyes filled with tears, snot running down from his nose in some kind of science tee, an iron man backpack dragged along behind him as he stands, hunched into himself next to a tall dark-haired woman so he looks so, so small, sobs racking his shoulders as he whimpers the words "mom and dad" over and over again.)_ He's alone, in a bright white, sterile room that hurts to look at, his arms pulled over around himself like he's trying to give himself a hug, his head lowered so that all she can see is his curly brown hair, tangled and sticking up the way it does after he runs his hand through it one too many times. Though she can't see his face, she can tell that he's crying even from where she's standing across the room, his shoulders shaking and fingers twitching erratically from where they are grabbing tightly into the folds of his sweatshirt.

 

"Peter." His name falls from her lips without prompting, warning bells screaming in her head as she makes her way towards him. He doesn't look up at her voice, but as she gets closer she can make out the tears that fall from his eyes onto his cheeks, his face red and blotchy from crying. She hasn't seen him look this wrecked, this broken since Ben, since his parents, and she almost stills at the thought because what the hell could've shaken him this much, taken her bright, brilliant boy and smashed his goofy façade into pieces? She's right next to him, now, but he still hasn't given any indication that he notices her presence, not even a lean into her side or a hand reaching out to find hers _(He always was clingy, craving physical contact with those he trusted - be it a hug, or a hand on his shoulder, or curling against each other watching TV - Peter needed the physical affirmation that you were there, that you wouldn’t leave_ ) so she reaches a hand to place on his shoulder-

 

And it goes straight through him.

 

What?

 

She tries again, to no avail - only succeeding in making her hand feel weird, almost like the pins-and-needles feeling that you get when a limb falls asleep. A strange kind of numbness settles over her, even as panic begins to bubble over - rising within her body like water about to boil over in a pot. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the door opening, and she turns to meet the face of a tall, blonde woman with her hair tucked back into a bun, her eyes tired and lips pursed. Peter stirs a little next to her but doesn’t look up, and the woman's shoulders fall in a sigh.

 

"Peter," she says, her voice nasally, in a tone that is a little too distant, a little too professional to be sympathetic. "I'm sorry about your loss, but it's getting late, and you can't stay here." The teen's head shakes minutely, his hair falling in waves over his forehead. May wants to pull him into a hug, but she _can't_ , and the puzzle pieces are falling into place in her head almost too fast for her to react. The woman waits for Peter to say something, but the usual chatter is gone: replaced with soft sobs and shuddery breaths that start at his chest and let out waves of trembles that end at his fingertips. She sighs again, a little more audibly, and Peter flinches back. "Do you have someone you can call?"

 

Peter nods, once, and pulls out his cell phone, pulling up his contacts. His hand's still shaking as he pulls it to his ear, and his teeth worry his lip as he waits for the call to connect. It goes through quickly - almost too quickly, but she puts that thought away for later, and Peter's voice is shaky like the rest of him as he speaks into the speaker.

 

"T-tony?"

 

May can't hear the billionaire's reply, but at his voice, Peter starts to cry a little more, his free hand clenching and unclenching at his side. "I-I need…" He sobs, the sound sending pangs of distress straight into her heart, and his shoulders tense with the effort to keep himself together, to prevent himself from full-out breaking down before explaining what happened. From the side, the woman's shoe taps impatiently, and May stifles an urge to tell her to fuck off. "I need you."

 

Though she can't hear Tony, she knows that he's panicking, probably was making his way to Peter's location the moment he got the call. May wants to cry, to scream - her kid is right there, so close that she can see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, so close that she can see the faint scar on the side of his forehead from where he crashed his bike into a tree when he was ten, but at the same time she's too far away for him to feel her hugs, to see her face, to hear her voice. Peter's still talking to Tony, speaking in halting, choppy sentences that he struggles to get out through his tears, and she thinks that he's in the middle of answering a question when the woman cuts him off, startling him so that he curls a bit further into himself, hand pulling at his hair the way it does when he gets really stressed. Objectively, May knows that her anger is a little irrational, that it's probably late and the woman, whoever the hell she is, just wants to get her job done so she can go home, but she's doing this to Peter - and well, with Peter, objectivity goes straight out the window.

 

"-Avery Nickles from the Department of Social Services. I understand that you're Peter Parker's emergency contact?"

 

May knew that she should've been focusing on the conversation, or at least on Social Services, but for some reason, she's stuck on the name. She knows its petty but grumbles in Italian under her breath just the same, though she knows that the woman won't hear her, cursing Avery Nickles and wishing that she could take Peter as far away from the woman as possible. Without Tony, Peter looks more lost than ever, staring resolutely at the floor with one hand still clutching a little too tightly at his hair - whenever he'd do that in the past, after Ben's death and the subsequent nightmares that he had after them, or when he'd first come into their little apartment in Queens, she'd carefully ease his grip so that he grabbed at her hand instead. She tries to do so without thinking, but her hand goes through him again and she draws it back as if burned, looking back at the social worker.

 

"-sorry to inform you of this, but May Parker was involved in a fatal car wreck this evening."

 

_May Parker was involved in a fatal car wreck._

 

She had been suspecting it - even before her hand went through Peter's body, really, starting from the strange lack of pain and fuzziness in her head that's still there if she focuses on it enough, but hearing it - out loud, sure, and real - it sends her eyelids crashing shut as her shoulders tense, fists clenched into fists. She takes a few slow breaths, emotions speeding through the five stages of grief - is she mourning her own death? But she can't linger on the bombshell, fuck, she'd prepared for this, written a will and everything, but she'd never thought that the world could hurt her kid again, that at least for Peter, he'd have at least one person left in his life, but _fuck-_

 

_(What was it, that Aaron Burr had sung in Hamilton when Peter was obsessed with it a year ago? Death doesn't discriminate? She wouldn't call herself a saint - but Peter, he was the best person she'd ever met, ever known, ever got to love, and death didn't care, just kept taking more and more and more anyways.)_

 

She lets her breaths steady as she opens her eyes again, resolve filling her being as she focuses on Peter. He needed her, right now, even if she couldn't do much - she had to watch over him. She'd promised Mary and Richard, then promised Ben, and now that there was no one left, she promised herself; she couldn't let Peter be alone.

 

She looks up as the woman hands the phone back to Peter, and he clutches it like it’s a lifeline. He's more closed off, a little more broken than earlier, his face almost passing for impassive if it weren't for the tears still rolling down his cheeks. He has a short conversation with Tony, shock settling over him so that all he can get out are short, simple words, and when the call disconnects he falls into hiccupping sobs. The social worker- Avery or whatever the shit, takes him by the arm and pulls him out of the hospital room, practically shoving him into some kind of office where she sits across from him, looking down at her kid with pity that makes May's blood boil. She sits on the side of the recliner that Peter had curled himself in, well, floated in a sitting position as close to the surface of the armrest as she could, anyway, and watched resolutely out the windows as to avoid her sniffling teenager that she couldn't comfort and the social worker staring at her computer.

 

It is because of this that she notices Tony Stark the moment he steps into the hallway- though he's half-running, looking more ragged than she's ever seen him. His face is set in a smile that looks more like a grimace by the second, and she's been a parent for long enough to recognize the panicked creases that settle at the corner of his eyes. As his eyes land on Peter, he finally stops, the smile falling off of his face entirely. It's strange, seeing him look this tired, this distraught - and before her eyes, he sets his shoulders back and puts his hands in his pockets, a million-dollar smile plastered on his face so blinding that it almost manages to cover the weariness in his eyes. In less than a second, he goes from frazzled mentor (father?) to the playboy billionaire image that she's seen a thousand times on TV, and a fleeting thought of whether he does this before every press conference or interview crosses her mind.

 

She doesn't pay attention to much of their conversation turning back to watch Peter. His face remains impassive through the tears, and May hates that she doesn’t even need to look at him to know what grief looks like on his face. When it gets too painful to look at the set edge of his jaw, his eyes shiny and red from crying, she turns back to Tony, and something in her is satisfied by how clearly his dislike is for the social worker, who is asking him something about guardianship.

 

"I think you'll find that I'm the one Mrs. Parker has listed."

 

May can see Peter's reaction from the corner of her eye, and she flinches back a bit; she really had meant to tell him about it, but nobody had expected anything to happen to her this soon. Peter probably didn't even know that she had a will drafted up already. She closes her eyes, still listening to the conversation.

 

"And are you willing to undertake these responsibilities?"

 

May looks up at Tony, searching his face for any trace of doubt.

 

"Why do you think I'm here?"

 

He tries to give his answer flippantly, but there's a fire in his eyes that wasn't there earlier like he's daring the universe to challenge him and prove him wrong. It's this determination that drove her to make the decision in the first place, she thinks, the ability for Tony to love so deeply and so truly that you forget that it's even there. It's the drive to protect that created Iron Man in the first place, the selflessness that pushed him through a wormhole with a nuke on his back, the worried, hovering kind of care that possessed Tony to create a suit worth millions, filled with protocols and technology that she can't even begin to understand just to make sure that her little boy can swing home in one piece at night. It's all of these things that made her write his name on her will, with the knowledge that no matter what happened to her, he'd do all that he could to keep her kid safe and happy, with a roof over his head and enough food to feed him for several lifetimes.

 

May had been afraid, before, that she'd judged him wrong, that she'd been putting her faith in a man that wouldn't follow through. But watching him come to Peter in the middle of the night, shifting from Tony Stark to Iron Man as he faces down a social worker that questioned how willing he was to take care of her kid, it takes that voice of doubt and quiets it, at least for now.

 

She watches as the social worker slinks over to the side of the room, and Tony walks towards Peter, his façade cracking slightly as he gets closer to the recliner where they sit. Peter says his name with a sort of desperation that she recognizes from the days that he'd hover just outside her room, eyes focused on his shaking hands like he's looking for something that isn't there anymore. After what feels like a hundred years, they start ambling towards the hallway, Tony slowing his pace down to that of Peter, who moved through the hallway listlessly. May follows a couple steps behind them, watching as Tony guides him forward with a gentle hand on Peter's forearm. She doesn't notice a wall in time to go around it, but when her shoulder catches the corner, it goes through it and she stops for a moment, eyes trained on her body which is somehow inside of the concrete.

 

She sighs and drags a hand down her face. Seems like she isn't as over her own death as she'd like.

 

\---

 

The drive is…weird, to say the least. The inside of the car is flashier than anything that she's ever been in before, and she knows from pictures that it's one of Tony's more discreet models. The seats look to be made of fine leather, the ride is smooth, and practically no noise from the outside world makes it past the metal doors. Even so, she can't enjoy it, watching as the bodyguard keeps shooting concerned glances from over his shoulder, watching as Peter makes himself a human koala, searching for comfort in the form of physical contact from Tony. Thankfully, the older man doesn't pull away, instead leaning back somewhat awkwardly, but full of that same care that he hadn't let go of since he arrived.

 

They arrive upstate, met by some friend of Tony's that she can't remember the name of. Personally, the Avengers really weren't a big part of her life - just the local group of superheroes that managed to save the world that one time. She isn't like Peter, who lights up at any merchandise that he can get from the thrift shops a couple blocks away and memorizes the trivia sections of all of their Wikipedia pages. If this was any other time, then Peter would've embarrassed himself at least five times by now, tripping over words (and likely his feet) in his excitement. Now, his eyes only flash slightly in recognition before he buries himself into Tony's side, making himself as small as possible.

 

It isn't until they go up into some suite of the compound, a pristine living area that looked straight out of some homeowner's magazine that she has some time alone with Peter. Tony leaves to talk with his friend, and May orients herself so that she looks straight into Peter's eyes. He hardly even seems to be there, staring blankly ahead at a dark television screen, life flickering in the back corners of his pupils like a flame about to go out. She hesitates for a moment before cupping a hand around his cheek, wishing that she could run her hand through his hair the way that she always had before.

 

"Hey, Pete," she finds her vision going blurry, and she realizes that she's crying for the first time since she woke up in this mess, tears welling in her eyes and spilling over onto her cheeks. "I-I'm so sorry, baby, so, so sorry for leaving you. " She wipes at her eyes to keep staring at the brown eyes she knows so well, but they don't look over at her in the way that she's seen a million times, don't light up with curiosity or blink owlishly in confusion. "It's gonna be ok, Peter, I promise, it'll be ok, alright? And…" The words are suddenly stuck in her throat in a way that they have never been before, burning and dry and hard to get out. For a fleeting moment, she wonders why she is talking to someone who will never hear her, but a flicker of her Peter in the back of his eyes has her drying her tears and taking his face as well as she can with her hands, so that their eyes are level and their noses almost touch. "I love you so, so much, Peter Benjamin Parker. I larb you, always, ok baby? Never-"

 

She pushes herself forwards in a hug, tightening her arms around empty space. Underneath her, Peter doesn't even flinch, still sitting up stiffly the way he had since Tony left however many minutes ago.

 

"Never forget that, alright?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave any and all thoughts in the comments, if you'd like. I'd love to see what you have to say! And again, all credits go to losingmymindtonight and her fic And You'll Blow Us All Away.
> 
> Also, May does curse a lot more than usual in this chapter. She's still adjusting to the whole being dead thing, and it's going about as well as expected.


End file.
